Monday, January 9, 2012

Well, its January 9th...

...I guess it's time to write the year-end/happy New Year post, right?

As I reflect on 2011, I can't help but smile. It was a pivotal year, it was an exhausting year...but it was a wonderful year.

The Ya Ya's came to town in April and I'm still not sure NY has recovered. 3 from Manchester, England, 3 from Atlanta, 1 from Virginia and one from Montana. What a wild, loving, diverse gang of girls! They all feed my soul in one way or another.Montana Ya Ya came earlier and stayed later than the others and she made the most of every minute in NYC. I didn't have to "babysit" her, she was fearless. She got on the subway by herself a few times and always made it home ok. We ate Italian food every day as it's her favorite. We found a wholesale jewelry supply store and I picked out pearls and she made me a necklace and earrings that I will cherish forever.

The girlfriends I grew up with from the old neighborhood and I started going out for dinner every so often at a fun Italian and those dinners are really something to look forward to. 6 or 8 women, many of whom I know since my first day of first grade back in 1976, who can appreciate and even love the woman I've become. We're all so different, but we have the common blood of Sheepshead Bay running through our veins.

I went back to camp!! I'm the leader for my daughter's Girl Scout troop and we want to take the girls camping so I had to get "Camp Certified." The best part is that I had to do the certification course at the camp I went to from 1980-1987!! What an amazing experience!! To be able to share with my daughter the place that was so much a part of the person I have become is an deeply moving experience. So much of the camp is the same, yet so much is completely different. The Kid and I listened to "We Found Love" by Rihanna about 396 times on the trip up and back and that song will now always make me think of that magical weekend in the NY woods. The women I did the certification course with were so in tune with me; we were all doing the course for the same reason...to make a difference in girls' lives.

I upgraded to a smartphone and for the first 2 weeks after I got it, I felt sooooo dumb!I thought these things were supposed to make us smart...SMH...

I had a very low-key Christmas and I liked it. No casts of thousands all showing up wearing their fat pants so their circulation wouldn't get cut off, no family drama, no ugliness with the Ex....Just Chinese take-out and The Help on DVD...it was divine.

The Kid and I were supposed to go to my friend's house for New Year's, but her poor son had pneumonia & the flu. We decided that we'd make everyone another New Year's by celebrating Chinese/Lunar New Year's at the end of January. My friends and I are always looking for new and exciting reasons to get together and hang out, so why not Chinese New Year?!?!?


If 2012 is half as good as 2011, I'm in for a great time this year...